Dan Kennedy's blog on media and politics • published by the Boston Phoenix from 2002 to 2005

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

AND NOW, THE REST OF THE
STORY. The Boston Globe recently announced that it will
begin accepting ads on the op-ed page. A column
today that attempts to debunk concerns about global warming, by one
James M. Taylor, would appear to fall into that category.
Unfortunately, the Globe presents it not as a paid ad but,
rather, as an earnest opinion piece by someone who is identified only
by the respectable-sounding title of "managing editor of
Environment & Climate News."

More about that in a moment. First,
though, a few words about Taylor's wacky column, written ostensibly
to make fun of the movie The Day After Tomorrow, a
global-warming nightmare thriller. At first I figured Taylor would
simply point out that the various global-warming scenarios are more
complicated and less spectacular than Hollywood would have it. Within
a few paragraphs, though, Taylor was espousing the most extreme views
held by industry and its right-wing supporters. To wit: that if there
is any global warming taking place at all, it is slight, and in any
case will take place at night, while you're sleeping; and that the
concomitant rise in carbon-dioxide levels is good for you. Taylor
writes:

Most recent and unbiased
scientific research indicates that temperature change caused by
rising concentrations of greenhouse gases will be moderate,
perhaps 1 degree Celsius in the next century; most of the warming
will occur at night and during the winter; and higher
concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (which plant life
needs to thrive and survive) will lead to a greening of the planet
that will enhance global food production.

Now, in fact, the case for
human-caused global warming is a bit more complicated than
environmentalists would have you believe, which I discovered
when I dipped my toe into this turbulent water nearly three years
ago. But the overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion is
definitely not on Taylor's side. The simple-minded virulence of
Taylor's screed should have set off alarm bells when it arrived at
the Globe. It certainly set off Media Log's alarms. And it
took me no more than a few minutes on Google to learn that Taylor's
piece never should have seen the light of day - except in one of
those new op-ads.

Environment & Climate
News, as it turns out, is a publication of the Chicago-based
Heartland
Institute, a right-wing
organization founded in 1984 that is "devoted to turning ideas into
social movements that empower people." How nice. Scroll down its home
page, and you will see that it promotes relatively benign,
conservative-oriented causes such as school choice - and some truly
out-there ideas, such as the notion that genetically modified crops
are necessary to preserve water resources, that new air-pollution
standards "will do significant economic harm but little environmental
good," that the government should do nothing about the obesity
epidemic, and that second-hand cigarette smoke is
harmless.

It gets better. According to
Disinfopedia.com,
the Heartland Institute's directors include current and retired
officials of ExxonMobil, Amaco, General Motors, and Philip Morris.
Its funding comes from ExxonMobil and a number of right-wing
foundations, including the notorious John M. Olin Foundation and the
Scaife Foundations. (As in Richard Melon Scaife, who reportedly once
told
a journalist attempting to ask him a question, "You fucking communist
cunt, get out of here.") In addition, Heartland co-founder David
Padden is a right-wing activist long involved in such organizations
as the Cato Institute and the Center for Libertarian
Studies.

According to Bill Berkowitz,
writing
for WorkingForChange.com, "The Heartland Institute ... is one of the
foremost right-wing purveyors of the carbon dioxide is good for you
theory."

Op-ed pages are where newspapers
publish opinion pieces, and by their very nature the authors of those
pieces are not expected to be as disinterested as, say, reporters who
cover political campaigns, homicides, or the stock market. On the
other hand, neither are op-ed editors supposed to publish discredited
propaganda that's been bought and paid for by corporate and
right-wing interests, especially when those interests are not
disclosed.

The Globe has been
apologizing a lot lately, even when it shouldn't
have. Well, Taylor's
ridiculous piece is something that's definitely worth an
apology.

Meanwhile, the Globe's
advertising salespeople must be wondering how they'll ever manage to
sell an op-ad when the editorial side is giving them away.

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About Media Log Archives

The Boston Phoenix's Media Log was launched in 2002 by the paper's then-media columnist, Dan Kennedy, who continued it until he left the paper in 2005. The Phoenix's current media columnist, Adam Reilly, is now the author of Media Log, which has since been renamed Don't Quote Me. Kennedy, an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University, blogs at Media Nation.